War Memorial

About

The War Memorial (Maltese: Monument tal-Gwerra) is a memorial obelisk in Floriana, Malta, which commemorates the dead of World War I and World War II. It was inaugurated on 11 November 1938 by Governor Charles Bonham-Carter to the memory of those killed in World War I, but in 1949 it was rededicated to those killed in both world wars. The monument was designed by Maltese artist Louis Naudi, who was influenced by Antonio Sciortino.

According to Mark G. Muscat, the War Memorial "is possibly the sole example of a work of art in Malta which up to a certain extent illustrates the idea of Futurism put forward by Marinetti and Sant'Elia in Italy... Naudi deserves credit for his successful attempt at breaking away from the British colonial architecture that was commonplace at the time...

It would be more plausible to classify the War Memorial as an Art Deco stylistic expression... as an avant-garde aesthetic applied to hardstone construction, which gives Naudi's towering design an imposing look." The monument is an obelisk in the form of a Latin cross, and it is built out of local globigerina limestone. It has four plaques showing the colonial badge of Malta and reproductions of a document...